The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) has announced that its newly introduced National Payment Stack (NPS) has processed 26.55 million transactions valued at N1.4 trillion across 48 participating financial institutions.
The NPS, a sovereign and ISO 20022-compliant digital payment infrastructure, is being rolled out to succeed the 15-year-old NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) system as Nigeria moves to modernise its financial ecosystem.
According to NIBSS, FirstBank currently leads the participating institutions in transaction volume, while Fidelity Bank ranks highest in total transaction value.
Other major financial institutions contributing to the early growth of the platform include Guaranty Trust Bank, Sterling Bank, Access Bank and Moniepoint.
NIBSS said the NPS is designed to bring payments, identity and data onto a unified digital infrastructure, creating a more intelligent and interoperable payment system while supporting multi-currency transactions and enhanced cross-border capabilities.
The platform is built around the ISO 20022 data architecture, which allows financial institutions to process structured and metadata-rich transactions.
According to NIBSS, the architecture will support automated corporate reconciliation, improve merchant collections and enable request-to-pay invoicing.
The NIBSS in a statement said the NPS also consolidates single transfers and high-volume corporate disbursements on a unified payment rail, with support for direct debits, asynchronous processing and deferred settlement options.
Security and regulatory compliance have also been embedded into the platform. NIBSS said the system incorporates automated sanctions screening, account validation, end-to-end encryption and real-time risk scoring designed to identify potentially fraudulent transactions before execution.
The platform also provides participating banks with real-time visibility into net positions and continuous settlement accounting to improve liquidity and treasury management.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NIBSS, Premier Oiwoh, described the NPS as an economic catalyst capable of transforming Nigeria’s financial infrastructure from basic transaction processing to a more sophisticated payment intelligence ecosystem.
‘The National Payment Stack represents an economic catalyst moving our financial infrastructure from basic transaction processing to comprehensive payment intelligence,’ Oiwoh said.
He added that the ISO 20022-compliant, multi-currency platform would provide the foundation for greater interoperability, stronger security and smoother regional trade.
Oiwoh, however, urged participating financial institutions to accelerate their integration efforts to ensure a seamless transition to the new infrastructure.
He called on banks and other financial institutions to activate the required messaging and fund-transfer credit and debit processing rails, stressing that full ecosystem readiness would depend on technical and operational alignment among participants.
He said NIBSS would continue to provide technical support, guidelines and integration assistance to help institutions meet KYC validation requirements and optimise API usage.
The Director of the Payments System Supervision Department at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dr. Rakiya Opemi Yusuf, was also quoted in the statement as urging financial institutions to accelerate their integration with the NPS.
She spoke during a working visit to the NIBSS headquarters, reinforcing the CBN’s regulatory support for the adoption of the ISO 20022 standard across Nigeria’s payment system.
NIBSS said the ultimate objective is to achieve a full industry-wide transition to the NPS and eventually decommission the legacy NIP infrastructure.